


Pearl

by Chipper_Daily



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Cryptid Time, Dream Demon, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25454749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chipper_Daily/pseuds/Chipper_Daily
Summary: Dib bites off more than he can chew while out on a cryptid hunt, and it's up to Zim to sweep in and save him. Again.
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 80





	Pearl

**Author's Note:**

> Before we even start I just want to make it clear the cryptid here is NOT supposed to be a w*ndigo.

" _Dib?_ "

Zim held his breath, his antenna upright and quivering in the darkness with concentration, straining to hear a response. The air was cool and humid, smelling of rotting plant matter, petrichor, and old canvas as rain pelted down onto the tent around him. His foam mat squeaked beneath his slight weight as the Irken finally shifted to cast his gaze away from the small two-person tent's zipped door. The foam mat across from him was empty, the haphazardly thrown open sleeping bag cold, yet Dib's scent still hung faintly in the air.

It was a part of the regular morning routine for the human to wake up and shuffle off into the woods to expel whatever waste toxins had collected in his bladder-sack during his biologically mandated sleep. Then he'd reappear, complain about the cold/rain/mosquitos/whatever, as if this terrible bigfoot search hadn't been entirely HIS idea in the first place, or start planning their day (out loud, of course, as it seemed the Dib's brain and mouth were directly connected) while he roughly kicked off his boots. Then Zim would be expected to roll over to face the opposite wall while the human changed from his sleepy-time clothes into his wakey-time clothes. (Both sets were made from cotton-polyester blends, so Zim didn't understand why the Dib didn't just wear his usual jeans and t-shirt to bed. They could skip this step in the morning altogether. Yet, the stink-beast was stubbornly unreceptive to Zim's more practical suggestion, so Zim just chalked it up to another ridiculous human tradition.) 

It didn't usually take this long for the Dib to return, though. 

Finally, Zim released his held breath with a low, annoyed huff as his antenna pressed flat against his scalp, and he reluctantly tugged open his sleeping bag zipper. 

(Not that Zim needed to sleep- but it was a warm and comfortable little spot to curl up during the long, boring hours the Dib spent recharging his inferior organic brain-meats, and helped slightly muffle the human's snores.) 

He crawled to his mat's base, begrudgingly fished his tightly rolled up little blue raincoat from the Dib's bulky backpack and awkwardly squirmed into the crinkling plastic shell before he roughly unzipped the front of the tent.

Zim blinked in open bewilderment as snow crunched beneath his small hands. His gaze snapped up to drink in the large, open clearing, framed by snow-covered trees and a dark, foreboding grey sky, clouds heavy with the large fluffy flakes that fluttered silently down around him. 

This… wasn't the little hollow between the towering trees where they'd pitched their- 

Zim whirled around to discover nothing but more empty clearing. He was utterly alone and unprepared on his hands and knees in the fresh snow, their tent nowhere to be seen. 

His voice caught in his throat as he turned back around in numb disbelief to discover he wasn't alone in the clearing anymore. A deer nosed the snow a few meters away, thin wisps of lichens trailed from it's branching horns, the soft clicking of its teeth the only sound in the stiflingly silent valley. It slowly raised its head and turned back to meet Zim's gaze with large, black eyes that seemed too sharp for its face, too aware, and slowly ran it's thick, purple tongue over its stained muzzle. Zim abruptly realized the clicking had been the sound of its teeth on bone, the brilliant red at its feet stark against the unblemished white snow, framing what Zim assumed used to be a rabbit. The deer's lips pulled back to reveal too many straight, blunt teeth in a startlingly human grin. 

_"You don't belong here, little one."_

The deep, otherworldly voice had come from directly behind him, and Zim's antennas bolted forward in alarm as he whirled around with a startled cry. His PAK legs burst forth, ripping through the flimsy plastic of his raincoat to stab blindly into… a featureless mannequin. 

" _Whu-?_ " Zim squawked as he jerked back and jabbed his ribs into his desk's edge hard enough to send it skittering ahead a good inch with an echoing screech of metal against tile. He doubled over and clutched his side with a hiss as his eyes darted around… Ms. Bitter's old classroom? Or at least it looked like it, at first glance. The room was too long, the lighting too stark, casting dark and twisted shadows across the floor, like ugly gashes in the tile itself, while the posters at the back of the classroom were indistinct. _Blurry._ Even when Zim tried to squint directly at them, it was as though his eyes slid away of their own accord. 

Each desk contained a blank, featureless mannequin, stiffly propped up with perfect posture in their chairs. Except for the doll directly behind him that had borne the brunt of his startled attack, it was slumped bonelessly to the side, sluggishly leaking from its puncture wounds. And Zim's assigned seat closest to the door, which sat empty. It clicked that he was in the Dib's desk, not his own, and Zim lunged out of the chair as though it had burned him. He caught words carved into the desk's surface out of the corner of his eye, ' _LIAR_ ' in particular, but when he turned back, the surface was smooth and unmarked. 

He took a moment to investigate the Dib's desk to no avail. It contained no clues, unmarked and empty beyond a single Membrane Labs branded pen tucked away in the very back, which was a bit strange, as Dib and his father unit hadn't spoken in months to the extent of Zim's knowledge. But he supposed it would be a bit too much of a coincidence to assume someone else had left it in Dib's desk, which had somehow sprouted up in the middle of Dib's campsite, while he was searching for the Dib. 

Zim squinted at the oddly heavy pen and tilted it in the harsh light. It looked… weird. The light wasn't shining on it the same way as the rest of the classroom as though badly photoshopped into Zim's palm. He thoughtfully rubbed his chin as he turned back around to discover the door had disappeared. 

Zim promptly dropped the pen with a clatter and dashed across the classroom to slam against the wall with both small hands. He felt along the smooth, unblemished surface with mounting desperation, but there was no sign there had ever been a door there in the first place. The petite Irken bristled as he stumbled a few steps back from the wall before clenching his hands tight enough to dig his claws into his palms and threw his head back to screech up to the ceiling.

" **DIB-WORM!** What did you even _DO,_ you HORRIBLE creature?!" He took a moment to flail out his frustration with his tiny fists before he finished with a peevish stomp of his boot. "You are NEVER dragging me off on another one of your terrible hunts EVER AGAIN, you hear me, stink-meat?!" Zim took a second to attempt to smooth the wrinkles from the front of his raincoat (impossible) before storming back across the class to snatch Dib's pen off the floor. He needed _something_ to throw at Dib's giant stupid head as soon as he found the infuriating human. Zim stuffed it into his pocket as he straightened once more to eye the Dib's desk. He could probably just throw it through the window to escape- 

He was distracted from that train of thought by a gentle breeze on his antenna. He jumped and twisted back to the opposite wall, but the door hadn't returned. He turned to the window with a baffled look, as it wasn't open either, yet the air in the silent classroom still moved. Finally, Zim faced the front of the class. Ms. Bitter's desk loomed, but there was no chair or mannequin propped up behind it. The Irken squinted as he combed back through his memory banks to remember if the chalkboard had been black or green when he had attended fifth grade. Either way, the board here was _too_ black, yawning like a void, it seemed to absorb the light around it. Zim found himself drifting towards the front of the class as the soft breeze brushed over his sensitive antennas again. It smelled… stale. _Old._ Different from the familiar scent of the dusty classroom. Was the board… a window? It couldn't be, Zim's ocular implants could function even in next to zero light, yet he could make out _nothing_ in the velvety darkness of the chalkboard. However, he could _feel_ it, a gentle breeze stirring from beyond the black veil. He hesitantly reached out. His hand awkwardly hovered as Zim couldn't help but feel a bit silly. 

A desk squeaked against the tile behind him, and Zim whirled around to discover the mannequins blank faces were all twisted to face _him,_ and the desks had all shuffled closer to the front, their stark, jagged black shadows stretching forward across the floor to pool at his feet. 

A half-shaped instinct jolted deep in his guts, whispered, soft but urgent that he needed to _run._ Before Zim could question it, he vaulted over the lip of the chalkboard and into the thick darkness beyond.

No light filtered through from the classroom, the pitch-black was absolute, all-consuming, as Zim crouched where he'd landed, waiting for his ocular implants to adjust. He swallowed down the urge to panic as the minutes ticked by, yet, the darkness around him didn't sharpen into distinct shapes of obstacles and terrain. The air was heavy, still, stagnant, whatever window he'd escaped through was gone now. There was no going back.

Even without being able to see, awareness still slowly suffused through his being. He had no way to explain _how,_ but he _knew_ he was in a cave deep beneath the earth's surface and that the only way out was forward. Zim took a slow, steadying breath, and carefully hauled himself to his feet. His small hands hovered blindly in front of him, and he took his first cautious step, then another, and another, deeper into a black darker, more ancient, than anything he'd ever experienced before. 

The darkness was so thick it pressed heavy against his skin, yet a faint sort of awareness tickled at the edge of his mind, and his antenna flicked irritably in the dark as though it would help bring the half-memory into sharper focus. Of torchlight dancing across the claustrophobic stone in an unfathomably distant past. The flame itself was long gone, yet it's impression still rippled in the darkness like a fingerprint pressed into the weave of time itself: a memory, a ghost. 

He couldn't see them, but he could feel them, creatures of charcoal and pigment fighting and hunting and playing, their eyes turning to watch his stumbling, uncertain passage, claws and hooves gliding silently across the surface of the stone at his side. 

A rock clattered somewhere behind him, and Zim froze as he felt the curious charcoal creatures scatter. His antenna bolted upright, intent on picking up any other signs of movement in darkness that rendered his other senses useless. 

He was rewarded with deep, even breathing, drifting closer as dread crept up his spine to swell in the back of his throat like a chunk of ice. Zim clenched his fists and furrowed his brow as he tried to swallow the lump down. He was a _soldier,_ and he wasn't scared of the dark. The little Irken sucked in a deep breath and held it as he ducked down and crawled beneath a stainless steel table. 

He twisted to check behind him as his eyes adjusted to the dim fluorescent lights and shades of sterile greys and cool blues. Four deer legs stalked slowly, purposefully, past his hiding spot, it's hooves clicking against the tile. 

_"I know you're here, little one- do you not have dreams of your own?"_

Zim silently bared his teeth as the voice filled his head again, somehow separate from the computers and machines' droning hum. Zim had only seen the Dib's parental unit's basement lab once or twice, and certainly not from beneath a table, yet he was fairly certain that's where the tunnel had led. 

_"You're not special. Your blood's as warm as anyone else's."_

The clicking of hooves drifted further away, and Zim stuck his tongue out in the direction it had wandered off. He turned back around and crawled across the underside of the table into his own lab, the muted light and familiar shades of pinks a balm for his frazzled nerves. 

Zim stood upright with a relieved sigh, absently kicked the cabinet doors closed behind him (it had always been a cabinet, right?) and stretched luxuriously. It was so delightfully warm in his base, unlike that horrid little tent in the middle of nowhere. Which reminded him- 

"Computer! Access the Dib's tracking chip." 

"I cannot do that, Master." 

"Why not?" Zim spat, any contentment he'd felt upon stumbling back into his base was instantly burned up by annoyance with the abrupt reminder that all of his equipment was a faulty joke. Or Dib had managed to find Zim's implant behind his left ear and dug it out. _Again._ Or both. (Most likely both.)

"Dib is lost, Master-" The screen above Zim's couch flickered with shifting static as it had every day back when Zim still tried to contact his Tallests after the Florpus incident. A jolt of adrenaline shot through Zim's entire being with the sudden realization he wasn't presentable enough in case the transmission went through this time, this time, _this time-_ "W-We're all lost in this place, Master." 

He froze as he reached down to smooth the wrinkles from his uniform, his brow furrowed in confusion- why was he wearing his rain jacket inside his house? (Not his, Dib had-)

The memory of hauling it out of Dib's backpack snapped into sudden, sharp focus. And pitching the tent in a small hollow between two massive trees. The taste of sticky sweet marshmallows, gooey beneath a burnt skin beside the campfire while Dib teased him about the Irken's clearly superior marshmallow roasting method, where the human looked more at ease than he had in years. The way the firelight painted the Dib's face in hues of orange and gold and cast the deep bags under his warm brown eyes in stark contrast. Before that, the long hike off the beaten path and the human unexpectedly showing up at Zim's house to whisk the little Irken off on this incredibly stupid adventure even before that. (And the anger, the tears, the despair, and the flimsy denials years before. The night after night after night of standing at attention, waiting, waiting, waiting for a transmission to go through-) 

"What is this? Why can't you access the Dib's chip?" He stiffly held his ground in front of the screen, even as his eyes flicked nervously around his living room. Or what should have been his living room, were it not twisted into unfamiliar, threatening shapes. 

"Because we're inside his mind, Master. The Dib is h-here. All of this is him." 

"I'm stuck in his giant head? _Again?_ " Zim rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh. "Of COURSE, I should have known- _ugh,_ I don't know WHY I keep that miserable meat-sack around. How does this keep _happening?_ " If he had a nickel for every time he'd been sucked into Dib's mindscape, he'd have… ten cents. Still, it was weird that it happened _once,_ let alone twice. Perhaps he should try to find his way back to the Membrane lab? With any luck, there may be another dimension viewing thingie he could crack the human's ridiculously thick skull open with as an escape again. On the other hand, that was the last place he'd seen- 

_your blood's as warm as anyone else's_

"He-he is wandering, Master, further and further from himself. You need to find him- he will listen to you, he will follow wherever you l-lead him. Otherwise, he won't be able to find his way back. And al-already, it stalks him." 

" _It?_ What, you mean the deer? I'm sure a Bam-bee is no threat to the Dib-beast." Zim's antenna perked incredulously.

"A 'd-deer' doesn't hunt, M-master." 

It suddenly clicked that his computer had the wrong voice, and Zim was falling backwards. 

Warm sunlight filtered through the autumn leaves, still clinging to the branches and painted in hues of liquid gold. The leaves that had already fallen were soft and slightly damp beneath him, and the grass was stiff and itchy where it poked through the weave of his sweater. The air smelled sweet and felt crisp against his face. His hand was warm, gently entwined with another in a way that made his heart flutter. The tiny hand had fewer fingers but still fit so perfectly in hi- Zim blinked, soft wool replaced with crunchy plastic as he turned to the side and met his own wide magenta eyes, tender in a way he couldn't recognize. Adrenaline jolted through his veins as Zim ripped his hand away and bolted upright to an entirely different scene, a softer version of his own voice still buzzing in his upright antenna.

_"He's waiting at the center- a pearl beneath the shell."_

Blankets pooled around his waist as he glanced around the Dib's old smeethood bedroom. What little colour there had been was muted further to indistinct blurs of grey. The only light spilled forth from the computer monitors crawling across his wall and ceiling like creeping ivy, all blank beyond the single, burning symbol of the Swollen Eyeball Network. The voice of Zim's not-computer crackled through unseen speakers, deep and distorted, as the monitors swelled up the wall like a plume of smoke to swarm over the bed, dozens of searing eyes boring down unblinkingly the voice fizzed and popped. 

_"You don't belong herrreeeeee, l-l-little one."_

Zim threw back the covers and rolled off the bed to land on the floor in a crouch. The vibrant blue of his raincoat shifted after him, a fraction of a second delayed behind his movements, the pop of colour blindingly bright in the monochrome of the Dib's smeethood lair. His hands sunk into the plush carpet and through the floor beneath, and Zim had to reel back to pull them free. The Irken lurched to his feet with a horrified gasp and stumbled towards the door, each step plunging into the floor as though it were quicksand. He lunged for the door handle to find himself careening into the Membrane kitchen instead. Colour had returned to the world around him, shades of grey shifted to shades of green, yet the lighting remained _wrong,_ casting shadows in bizarre and unnatural angles. The Gaz sister, small like Zim hadn't seen her in many years, sat hunched at the table, a plate holding nothing but a bare hambone in front of her, while Professor Membrane stood stiffly facing the far counter with his back to the kitchen entrance. 

Zim took a second to bend over to catch his breath and gasped upon discovering he'd lost one of his boots in Dib's bedroom quicksand (carpetsand?). He whirled around to march back up the stairs to the stink-creature's messy room to dig it out of the floor when Gaz's voice(s?) stopped him in his tracks. 

"No one cares, D-d-di-zimmmmm-b." 

_"You're real."_

Zim's attention snapped back to the table to find the Gaz simultaneously slouched in her chair, squinting down at the game system clutched in her tiny claws, while also cooly evaluating the little Irken with uncannily sharp amber eyes. 

"I didn't say anything!" Part of Zim barked back defensively, while the other part planted his fists on his hips and met Gaz's gaze with a frown. 

"Where's Dib?"

"You're not following the script, dummy." The Gaz playing her gameslave drawled with her usual detached disinterest as the Gaz staring at Zim blinked owlishly.

_"Don't you have dreams of your own, dummy?"_

"What does that have to do with anything?!" Both Zims spat and dramatically flung their hands in the air. 

"That is _enough,_ s-son," Zim blinked his surprise and turned to stare at the Membrane parent unit's looming shape, the professor's shoulders and back visibly tense beneath his typical lab coat, yet he still wouldn't turn around. "I have tried to be _patient_ with your unscientific _nonsense,_ but you're much too old to continue with ~~these paranormal delusions~~ t-that raincoat." Zim cast a bewildered look down at the blue plastic coat Dib had given him back in hi skool. The silhouette he stood in tugged against his skin as it silently lashed out in heartbreak and rage, following a script Zim had only ever been able to vaguely piece together from trying to re-arrange the jagged shards of the aftermath. 

The dream froze around him as though someone had hit a pause button, unable to continue without the proper players when Zim caught a movement from the corner of his eye. He gasped as an indistinct figure dashed past the kitchen window, and the small Irken tore free from the silhouette to run towards it. His palms hit the glass with a thunk, and he stretched up on his toes to try and catch another glimpse of the stranger. 

"Dib?" Zim scowled at how vulnerable his voice sounded and took a second to shake his head as though he could shake off the trembling unnamed emotion fluttering beneath his ribs like droplets of water from the hood of his coat. Once he'd recentered himself, he sank his little claws into the glass, and he ripped a strip down the wall as though it were a painted backdrop made of paper. He slipped through the tear to find himself backstage and turned in time to catch the mysterious stranger duck past the heavy red velvet curtains onto the stage. Zim gritted his teeth and growled low in his throat before he lunged in pursuit. 

The stage lights were blinding, disorienting after stumbling through so many dimly lit scenes. It took Zim a minute to return to himself as he stood frozen in absolute terror, open and horribly exposed on the empty stage. He lifted his arm to block out the glare and squinted out into the darkened audience to discover there wasn't one, simply rows upon rows of empty seats. Relief washed over him with enough force to make his knees feel weak- no one had witnessed him without his disguise, Zim was _safe._ Movement from the corner of his eye abruptly dragged Zim back into the moment, and he whirled to watch the curtain sway at the opposite end of the stage. Right- none of this was _real,_ except for him, and the horrid human destined to get a pen hucked at his giant sweaty head for _daring_ to drag Zim into his mess of a subconscious. _Again._

"HEY! _STOP!_ " Zim called and tore down the empty stage in pursuit- or he started to, anyway, but promptly stumbled and almost face-planted into the wooden stage when he stepped on a dried rose and earned himself a bare foot full of sharp thorns. The former Invader hopped back on his one boot with a squawk and glanced down to discover a stage littered with withered roses, the petals long shrivelled and browned, but the thorns remained sharp as ever. Zim bristled and clenched his small fists as a low growl vibrated deep in his chest. Dib was going to get the stupid Membrane pen and _everything that wasn't nailed down_ back at their _horrid_ little camp thrown at his big stupid head for dragging Zim into this (and getting dragged into this himself). As soon as Zim made sure Dib was okay. That was the priority. Then Zim would make Dib _not_ okay. 

Zim unzipped the front of his raincoat to shuffle the plastic down over his shoulders enough to expose his PAK, and his metallic legs shone under the harsh stage lights as though they were somehow forged from light itself, lifting Zim safely from the thorns so he could dart across the stage. 

On the other side, he found a cramped dressing room, about the size of a small walk-in closet, dominated by a massive mirror across from the door, and surrounded on both adjacent walls, from floor to ceiling, with taxidermied animal heads. 

Zim promptly spun on his heel to go back out onto the stage instead. However, he discovered nothing but ancient, inky black pressing against him and deep, even breathing. So Zim kept on spinning on his little heel until he was facing the mirror again and slammed the dressing room door shut behind him in one fluid motion. 

He flopped back against the door and held his breath as his antennas perked as far as they could upright, desperately listening for breathing- or anything else- from the other side. The seconds dragged into minutes with no stirrings from beyond the door, and Zim finally released his breath in a long sigh. His eyes slid shut as he just listened to the sound of his breathing in the stuffy dressing room. Something knotted in his guts at the thought that only a few short hours ago, it had been Dib's deep, even breathing he'd been hearing. Wrapped up warm and safe in his sleeping bag while his human snored softly beside him, and rain pattered above them, a small, soft little pocket removed from the rest of the universe for just the two of them. The Dib was still sleeping, apparently, and he needed Zim to wake him up.

_(he needed Zim-)_

Zim swallowed thickly and whirled around to wrap his hand around the door handle. He needed to find Dib. He needed to go back. Back to the Dib's old house and into the basement to find the dimension thingie that had worked for them before, and back through the tunnel and the classroom to their tent, Dib couldn't have wandered _that_ far away, he had to be _somewhere_ close to- 

_\- thin wisps of lichens trailed from it's branching horns, the soft clicking of its teeth on bone the only sound. Glassy black eyes, too sharp, too aware, as its lips pulled back to reveal too many straight, blunt teeth in a startlingly human grin._

Even though Zim's antennas quivered with concentration, he could pick out no sound at all from beyond the door, yet still, yet still, he could _feel_ that same grin stretched wide, hovering just on the other side, it's teeth glistening as saliva dripped from its maw. The little Irken's hand slipped from the door handle to click the little button that would lock it instead and backed away from the door until he bumped up against the dressing room table in front of the mirror. He jumped and twisted to find himself. His reflection stared back at him, wide-eyed and small and miserable. Some _soldier,_ he was too scared to even face off against a stupid deer. How was he going to get him and his human out of this one now? 

"Where's Dib?" He whispered as he desperately searched the bright, almond-shaped eyes of his reflection. He waited a tense moment before he deflated, and his gaze fell to his hands in embarrassment. What was he expecting to happen? Since when did the Dib make _anything_ easy?

He tugged his raincoat back over his shoulders, and the memory of a plastic bag hitting him in the face before hitting the floor at his feet fluttered to the front of his mind. The plastic bag had contained a plastic coat, and Dib had laughed cruelly at Zim's indignant fury after throwing his _cast-offs_ directly into the Irken's superior face-meats. The earth boy had sneered that it was a 'hammy-down,' whatever that was supposed to mean, and Zim was quietly delighted to discover the tags were still attached. He strongly considered returning it to the store from whence it came in exchange for human monies but in the end he… didn't. He kept the crunchy rag-garment, even though it was the wrong colour, and his paste worked perfectly well, thankyouverymuch, _Dib-stink._ The Dib had actually seemed surprised Zim still had it when he arrived without warning in the rain years later to pitch this terrible bigfoot hike to the Irken. Humans changed colours for a variety of stupid reasons; surprise was probably one of them, right? 

Zim's gaze slid up from his zipper back to the mirror, and he realized with a jolt that his reflection wasn't wearing a coat. The Zim in the mirror's face split into a wide grin as the Zim outside of it gasped and stumbled back from the table. 

Blunt teeth sank deep into his shoulder. The upper teeth braced against his collarbone as the back teeth scraped against his shoulder blade. Zim cried out and tore away from the burning point of sharp and sudden pain. His back hit the table as he whirled around, pulse pounding with the expectation to see the Not-Deer looming above him. Instead, a mountain goat threw its head back. It's bloody mouth wide, yet it lacked the lungs to scream as all the other animal heads mounted to the walls strained against the wooden plaques that kept them rooted, eyes wild and white teeth gnashing silently into the air. 

Zim hauled himself up onto the table with another squawk as trails of red raked down from behind the plaques, and the walls themselves shuddered. He heard his own laughter, faint and strangely metallic, and he turned in time to watch his reflection wink playfully and slip away to the side out of the mirror frame. His antenna bolted forward with a wave of anger and desperation when it suddenly clicked- _That's_ who had dashed past the kitchen window, who he's been chasing this whole time, his stupid reflection, not Dib at all. 

The drywall cracked as the walls sagged into the room, the animals thrashed in raw panic, still trapped in their final death throes as thin, skinless fingers poked through the cracks. Zim threw himself against the glass as something began knocking, slow and purposeful, on the door. The glass shimmered like light on the surface of water but held firm. Zim gritted his teeth and drew back to hurl his undamaged shoulder into the mirror again. This time the glass shattered, and the animal heads _screamed_ around him as he pitched forward. 

Glass shards rained down around him to spatter on the leaves and the ground. He tightly gripped his injured shoulder as he slipped and stumbled in the soaked grass and mud, wet leaves slapping in his face, yet he still raced forward, desperately following the three softly glowing pink panels of his reflection's PAK as they bobbed ahead of him in the darkness. The voice of his not-computer rang in his mind.

_he will follow wherever you lead him_

_he will follow wherever you lead him_

_he will follow wherever you lead him_

It wasn't _Zim's_ dream, Zim DIDN'T dream, at least not in any way that could be manipulated like this. Zim was in _Dib's_ dream. All of this was for his human, to lure him deeper. Zim was following a path leading to a trap laid for someone else. He wasn't following the script because it had never been written for him, and he'd been stumbling through abandoned sets for scenes that had already played out. Memories, _ghosts,_ like the impression of flame in the darkness beneath the earth.

Yet even if the path hadn't been laid for him, it led to what belonged to Zim. And no Irken would surrender what is _theirs_ without a fight. 

He leapt over a mushroom covered log and landed with a splash that almost swept his feet out from under him, yet he managed to clumsily regain his balance and continue after the bobbing lights that danced ahead of him. He couldn't help but note, with no small degree of salt, that it seemed his reflection was having a much easier time navigating through the dark woods than he was.

He blinked as it suddenly clicked that the mushroom covered log was familiar, and the Irken came to a sliding stop to turn back and squint at the old log. If he didn't know better, he would think it was the same as the one near their- 

He slowly turned away from the log, and his eyes widened as they fell on the small two-person tent nestled in a little hollow between the towering trees. 

The rain drizzled down and Zim's breath fogged in the dim grey light, yet his reflection remained perfectly dry where he stood, unmoving and unblinking, by the tent entrance. Zim finally set his jaw, squared his shoulders, and stepped into the small clearing. His one bare foot squelched in the mud while blood and rainwater trickled down his side beneath his raincoat to soak his uniform. Across from him, his reflection basked in the light of early autumn, where the air was crisp but not cold, and the itchy dry grass poked through his sweater when they held hands, his pretty face haloed by a crown of golden leaves. Every inch a fantasy. 

The reflection tilted his head and cocked his hip to the side as Zim approached, his reflection's half-lidded magenta eyes soft in a way that Zim had a hard time looking directly at without something unbearably fragile twisting in his guts. His gaze fell to his mirror-image's mouth instead, to the way it twitched into a small grin as the reflection reached down to pull the tent flap open and coyly purred.

_"A pearl beneath the shell."_

"Whatever." Zim grunted in return as he ducked down and gingerly crawled into the tent. 

He emerged from under a tablecloth into a massive banquet hall filled with eloquently dressed, masked humans twirling across the marble dance floor in unison. Zim stood and pulled back his hood with a low, annoyed huff and carefully scanned the room. Finally, his gaze landed on a lone figure between the spinning pairs, leaning dejectedly against the opposite wall, watching the dancers with an air of bored disinterest. Zim sucked in a tight breath as unnamed emotion swelled beneath his ribs, and he darted across the dance floor, weaving between waltzing mannequins that didn't seem to notice he was there at all, to stop abruptly before the lanky figure on the other side. 

Zim pinched his lips into a thin line, his fists clenched at his sides, and his heart in his throat as Dib's half-lidded gaze slid lazily from the twirling marionettes to cooly eye the petite Irken that had appeared before him. He idly swirled the red solo cup clutched in one hand, his other arm crossed firmly over his chest before he finally arched a skeptical brow. 

"You look like roadkill." 

Zim plunged his hand into his pocket and threw Dib's pen at his fat head. 

"Augh!" The human squawked indignantly at the unexpected assault as he flinched back and let go of his red solo cup, leaving it hovering in the air, to rub his forehead before fixing Zim with a scowl. "What the hell is your _damage,_ Zim?!"

" _You_ are, Dib-worm," Zim bristled in return as Dib tore his gaze away with a peevish snort and crouched down to pick up the pen at his feet. "Zim demands you wake up this instant!" The exiled Invader stomped his one boot against the marble as Dib's expression darkened upon reading the logo on the pen he'd scooped up off the floor. The human's lip curled, and he stiffly turned to throw the pen back at the petite Irken. Zim caught the projectile and stuffed it back in his pocket as Dib's shoulders bunched defensively beneath his signature black coat. 

"Why don't _you_ leave, you ugly cockroach?" Dib spat, his eyes bright with anger as he gestured broadly. "I can't get _away_ from you, can I? Even in here! Why can't you just _leave me alone?_ " 

"What are you even blathering about?!" Zim barked back. "YOU asked ME to come with you!"

"You sound like my _sister_ ," Dib sneered as he shifted to shove his hands into his coat pockets and turn away. "I don't need to listen to this-"

" _What?_ " Zim growled his frustration and lunged forward to grab Dib by the wrists before stuffing his hands in his pockets. He had only wanted to yank Dib back, force the human to face him, yet suddenly they were twirling the same waltz across the marble floor as the rest of the masked marionettes. Pink drops beaded on the blue plastic lining the gouge in Zim's shoulder, glimmering like jewels beneath the dappled light, like autumn sunlight through golden leaves. Their feet moved of their own accord, gliding gracefully across a floor painted fire red as Zim arched his back to gaze up at a ceiling of a thousand eyes. 

"Why are we here?" Zim only realized he'd spoken out loud when Dib's grip on him tightened.

"Don't act like you care." Dib huffed through his clenched teeth as he quickly glanced away, faint colour flushing delicately along his cheekbones.

"Wha- _What_ are you talking about? How DARE you!? Of course Zim doesn't care!" Zim's antenna bolted upright, and he furrowed his brow at the traitorous warmth that blossomed in his cheeks as they dipped and weaved through the throng, each twist and step in perfect sync, as intuitive as breathing. "Is this a part of your stupid script? Do you even hear what I'm saying?"

"Because my head's a fucking mess, okay? Is that what you want to hear?" Dib bristled and bared his teeth in a terrible grimace down at the petite Invader. "Have yourself a little chuckle at _poor_ Professor Membrane's _crazy_ son who can't even handle the fucking _pity job_ his dad handed him?"

"Are you _serious?_ I don't care about your pitiful human _daddy issues_ , Dib-stink, I want to go home!" Zim squirmed against Dib's surprisingly firm grip and the smooth glide of his own legs, willing with every fibre of his being for one of his feet to pull back and kick Dib in his terrible shin to see if that snapped him out of this- _whatever_ this was. Cold dread crept up his spine with the realization that he had no control over his limbs. "Will you just listen to me?!" 

"I don't want to go back- I _can't-_ " Dib deflated as the marionettes around them pulled apart and switched partners. Zim caught a pair of pale, lifeless hands swooping in his peripheral vision as Dib's grip on Zim's waist slipped away, and he began to turn to face the featureless mannequin.

" **NO!** " Zim barked and snatched Dib's writs again to jerk his human back to face him. Dib blinked hard in wide-eyed bewilderment when Zim _hissed_ at the masked, faceless marionette as it froze in the middle of the dance floor, stranded without a partner. " _NO!_ Don't even THINK about it. I'm not done with you!" Zim snapped up at the human as he peevishly shoved Dib's hands back on his waist, and Dib's ears flushed red. "If you hate your stupid _job_ so much, then QUIT! It's not that deep, earth-boy! I don't want to hear another drooling, _moronic_ PEEP about not going back, understood? You have NO IDEA what I've been through to find you- I was bitten by a _goat_ , Dib. A GOAT. And not even a whole one! And I'm SUPER MAD that this HORRIBLE ordeal RUINED my ugly raincoat!"

"Quit?" Dib's voice was small now, confused. "I can't just _quit,_ my dad-" 

"-Will get over it!" Zim bristled. "Or he won't. Either way, that's on _him,_ not you."

"Wait- Zim?" Dib blinked and shook his head in a double-take before wrinkling his nose. "Jeez, space-boy, what happened? You look like _roadkill._ "

"uuuuuUUUUUUGGGGHHHH" Zim rolled his eyes so hard his head flopped back, and he did his best to ignore how all the eyes in the ceiling fixed on the two of them. "Will you shut up and wake up already? We don't belong in this wretched place." 

"Honestly, I... don't think I belong anywhere." Dib's shoulders sagged as his gaze slipped away. 

"The Dib belongs with Zim," The petite Irken stated plainly, and Dib's eyes widened as the waltzing mannequins drew apart again. "It's not that hard- _will you get out of here?!_ " Zim snarled and kicked at the second marionette to try and sweep his partner away before turning back to Dib with a look of barely restrained frustration.

"You- you can't just _say_ stuff like that, Zim," Dib squeaked, flushed red to his eyebrows as he faltered in his step and almost tripped them both. 

"Tell me you noticed these things don't have heads anymore." Zim interjected dryly, and Dib stopped mid-sentence to glance around the room and discovered that, indeed, all the other dancers were headless now. 

" _Oh._ Uh. That's weird?" 

"You're weird. Will you just _wake up_ already?" 

"Wait- this is a _dream?_ " Dib stopped abruptly, and Zim almost crashed into him. The petite Irken fixed him with the flattest of flat looks. 

"Tell me, earth-stink, what do you store in that giant head? Jellied beans? A tasteful collection of argyle socks? Because it's certainly not a _brain._ "

Dib didn't acknowledge the dig as he intently searched Zim's face for a moment before his expression pinched into a tight, rueful grin. 

"Well, that explains things." 

Zim's retort died on his lips as Dib wrapped his arms around the petite Irken and drew him closer to press flush against the human's firm chest with a low hum. Zim's spooch flipped, and he couldn't even imagine _what_ colour his burning face had shifted, and suddenly it was Zim's turn to stumble over his own feet as Dib attempted to pull him back into step with the waltz still twirling around them. Zim abruptly shoved Dib away and indignantly sputtered as Dib blinked down at him in clear confusion.

"What-?! Are you-!? I-??" The former Invader faltered before he clenched his little fists and bunched his shoulders in flustered frustration. "This is the _opposite_ of waking up, you- you greasy deep-fried spicy Mc- _nuisance!_ " 

"Yeah, and wake up for _what?_ " Dib scoffed. "My dad breathing down my neck over, like, every decision I ever make? Or to go to a stupid job I _hate_ so all my co-workers can go out of their way to let me know how much no one likes me? What if I don't _want_ to wake up yet?" The marionettes stopped their endless twirling and swayed where they stood as the floor shuddered beneath them. 

"If they're too _stupid_ to see your worth, then those things don't matter! Those PEOPLE don't matter-" They were falling again, so heavy they plunged beneath the surface, yet both their feet remained planted on the cold ground, squared off and ready to fight.

"Oh yeah, well, what DOES matter then, _Zim?_ " They'd been falling into each other for most of their lives, like golden leaves spiralling around each other beneath a clear sky. Following the same steps in the same dance for years and years and years. Drawing close only to flinch away and restart at the first step again, and again, and again.

"I don't know- you tell me! What do YOU _want?_ " The air above the marionettes shimmered with heat from invisible flame as they crumpled to ash, and the wall's eyes snapped open around them, closing in suddenly. Then they were standing on the edge of a flickering orange flame. 

Both Zim and Dib turned to numbly watch two men, an Irken and his human, sitting side by side near the cheery little campfire in front of their cozy two-person tent. Zim's reflection still painted in hues of gold, and Dib's didn't have the deep bags under his eyes as the two chatted silently, seemingly unaware of the other ragged pair that had suddenly appeared across the campfire. Zim's reflection had the same superior marshmallow roasting style as the original- he plunged the puffy treat directly into the fire and pulled it free to watch it blacken and bubble beneath the flame. He'd then blow it out with a quick puff and peel off the crisped marsh-skin to reveal the delicious gooey mallow core. The Dib-reflection arched an eyebrow as the corner of his mouth twitched up while his lips silently moved, and the Zim reflection ate his perfectly roasted core right off the sharpened stick before he licked the tip of his long tongue over his lip and turned to meet his Dib's gaze. 

Something softened in those sharp brown eyes, and the Dib-reflection reached up to gently trail his fingertips along his Zim's jaw. The Zim-reflection's large magenta eyes slid shut, his soft lips sweetly parting as he leaned in, while his Dib leaned down-

Zim's eyes widened from across the flickering flames, an unwitting gasp caught on his lips when suddenly large hands clamped around his narrow shoulders and ripped him away from the tender scene. 

" _No, don't look-!_ " His Dib's voice was high with panic as he roughly tore his Irken away from the firelight to force Zim to look at him instead as the world around them plunged into total, claustrophobic, darkness, ancient stone walls closing in on all sides. 

Even though Zim could make out nothing else in the smothering darkness, he could still see Dib, as though the human's skin was woven with faint moonlight. He looked like he wanted to cry, his face tight with fear and shame.

"I'm sorry-" The human's voice washed through the darkness and stone like ripples in a still pond, and Zim's brow furrowed as he felt the pen in his pocket grow somehow _heavier_ until it was dragging down on the side of his coat. Dib's grip on his shoulders tightened as the human sucked in a shaky gasp. "I'm so sorry, oh god, oh fuck, you weren't supposed to _see-_ " 

_-their fingers entwined on the damp leaves and itchy grass, laughing together like nothing else mattered, barefoot beneath an autumn sky, framed by golden leaves like halos._

" _Fuck,_ " Dib squeaked as his hands flew to cover his face, and Zim's antenna bolted upright as his gaze drifted to fix over Dib's shoulder, something- _something_ tugging on the edge of his mind. "Don't be mad, I can- we can forget all of this, okay?" 

Zim snatched the strangely heavy pen out of his pocket, the metal shockingly cold even through his glove, and leapt up. He felt the ripple of shock beneath his human's skin, Dib's eyes widened, and his mouth fell open in a silent exclamation, and he jolted back as blunt white teeth framing a maw somehow darker than black lunged from the darkness over his shoulder. 

Because even though Zim was scared, he also hadn't been lying when he said the Dib belonged to him, and no Irken would ever surrender what is _theirs_ without a fight. 

He swung out into the darkness, the pen gripped tightly, and grinned in wicked satisfaction when he felt his improvised weapon hit its mark as the Not-Deer's eye burst in a gush of burning fluid beneath his little fist. 

The creature staggered back with a terrible cry, it's distorted voice an amalgamation of all those it had consumed before, and with a mighty toss of its ancient head, the world around them _shattered._

The world dissolved into raw sensation, falling, static, and the low, deep, rumbling tone of a bell, and Zim felt the layers of his sense of self separate to vibrate with each deep wave of sound. He hadn't realized his hands were outstretched until warm fingers entwined with his, and his (layers and layers) of eyes snapped open to discover Dib beneath him, and all around him, the layers peeled back to expose the vulnerable core. The pearl beneath the shell. 

"You have to wake up, Dib-" Zim didn't know which layer his voice came from, but it sounded distant, almost lost beneath the static and the constant drone of the bell. The fear was distant, too, as he felt something massive and ancient shift beneath them, like a predator lurking beneath the ocean waves, smoke and shadow still pouring from it's ruined eye. 

"I- I can't, I don't know how-" Dib's voice filtered back through the noise, and Zim gritted his teeth, and detangled his hand from Dib's, and slapped the human across his infuriating face as hard as he could. 

Dib's layers vibrated faster, overlapping with each other as Dib whirled back to fix Zim with a shocked, deeply offended look. Zim didn't give him a chance to respond before the little Irken sucked in a quick, shaky breath to steady his nerves, grabbed the Dib by his collar, and lunged down to kiss him. 

Zim's knees sank into the wet moss on either side of Dib's torso, as he straddled the human he currently had pinned on his back. The air was cool and humid, smelling of rotting plant matter, petrichor, and _Dib_ as rain pelted gently against his little blue coat. Zim's hands still fisted in Dib's shirt's collar, and the human reached up to grip his Irken's narrow shoulders as he tilted his head beneath him to deepen the clumsy kiss. 

Finally, Zim pulled back and slowly cracked open his eyes to his human's wide-eyed look of awe. Zim had both his boots again, and his shoulder and coat were thankfully undamaged, while the Dib seemed no worse for wear either. It was a long moment before either of them spoke.

"We need to get out of here, earth-boy." Zim's tone was flat, automatic, as he watched the raindrops bead on the Dib's glasses, and the edges of his sleepy-time hoodie darken with the damp seeping up into his clothes from the wet moss beneath him.

"You need to get off me first, space-boy." Dib huffed in return as he lightly squeezed Zim's shoulders. 

"No." Zim breathed as he leaned down to press their lips together again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, folks, they got out of there... eventually. 
> 
> This is for the Cryptid prompt for [zadrweekphase3](https://zadrweek3.tumblr.com), so make sure to pop by there to see some more amazing works! Alas, I'm a day late, but yanno, sometimes life be like that ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Fun fact: When I was a kid I used to have nightmares about being stalked by a meat-eating deer, like, ALL THE TIME, so I figured that was as good a thing to base a cryptid on as any XD 
> 
> Uh, I'm a little braindead atm, ngl, and this is unbeta'd (like everything else I put out whoops whoops) so if you folks see anything glaringly obvious please let me know, and, as always, thank you for reading & have a lovely day (~˘▾˘)~


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